Indian Country Today: Canadian government says it will only accept cash in land claim negotiations

[tuvor]

TORONTO - The day after Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized for his country's treatment of aboriginal people in residential schools, his government's representative in land claim negotiations with the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte delivered a bombshell.

Chief negotiator Vivian Bercovici told the negotiating committee that the government will not consider land as a form of compensation for a 923-acre parcel of land that was unlawfully patented to a John Culbertson in 1837.

Bercovici said a cash settlement would be the only option, said Chief Donald Maracle. In exchange for the money, the MBQ would have to surrender its treaty rights in what is now known as the Culbertson Tract, a picturesque area east of Toronto that includes about half the town of Deseronto (population 1,900).

Maracle said the announcement came as a shock because the Tyendinaga Mohawk Council has been in negotiations for four years on the understanding that it was seeking the gradual return of the land.

...

http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096417621